The Fallen Ones
by KSCrusaders
Summary: A brief vignette on Susan Pevensie post-TLB. Dreams are powerful, and never more so than when they resurrect the dead. Slightly inspired by Neil Gaiman's short story about Susan, as well as his Sandman series.


Disclaimer: Narnia, Susan, Jadis, etc. all belong to C.S. Lewis

A/N: I never thought I'd end up writing fanfiction about Narnia; I liked the books when I was younger, but hated _The Last Battle_ with a passion and never even finished it when Lewis dumped Susan. But with the movies coming out, I've been thinking about Susan Pevensie's fate, as well as the villainesses in the series. This is a product of very early morning writing and may not be any good, but it's one version of what might have happened to Susan.

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The Fallen Ones_

She was the first--and she will be the last. When all is said and done, and the Emperor's beast tires of his pet world, she will be the last to leave. She was there, frozen in everlasting ice. She was then, her dead body lolling from the great beast's maw. She does not live, but she yet breathes, watching through earth and fog. And she still touches everything and everyone who had ever lived or breathed, for who can appreciate the other seasons without winter?

She makes no apologies; she has killed, and been killed in return. She is unyielding, uncaring, heartless and inhuman as the forces she once commanded. But unlike him, she is there--always there.

She is there with young orphans left in the cold, dying of hunger and indifference. She is there when Narnian lords send their servants and peasants forth as cannon fodder. For the soldiers who happened to be on the wrong side, the creatures destroyed for nothing save their reputations, for her old allies and foes alike...her icy touch is the last thing they feel.

Aslan might have made this land, but she broke and shaped it. She is a part of it now, and every winter, she reigns once more. She is beautiful once more, covered in frost and snowfall.

"Where--where am I?" The voice is that of a dreamer, curious but strangely accepting, and it releases her from the ground. She forms from ice and vapor, turning to smile at the young woman who momentarily freed her.

"Ah...young one," says Jadis, her voice dark and soft as grave-earth. "I was told you would never return."

Susan Pevensie's eyes widen, those large dark eyes drawn and sunken with suffering. "I didn't think I would either," she says. "This is a dream."

"Perhaps, but does that make it less real?"

They stand in a wooded glade, by an old iron lampost. It is warm, but still midwinter, and the sun is rising in the west though the sky is black as night. They are both swathed in thin robes of white--the wrapping of the dead, the gown of a Queen of Narnia. Jadis looks at the girl and wonders if she too was once so young, so easily broken.

"Sister?" calls another voice, sweet and high and wild. Both Queens turn to see a third, her eyes glittering like emeralds, her bare body wreathed in long, green serpents.

"You too?" says Susan in mild surprise, and the Lady laughs sweetly.

"Are you not one of us now? An outcast?" she says, and two serpents disengage themselves from the writhing, shifting mass that passes for her clothing, reaching out to Susan, who shows no fear but wrinkles her nose a little in disgust.

"What am I doing here?" asks Susan. "I'm not dead, and you both are." She speaks with the intuitive knowledge of a dreamer, unaware of her waking doubts.

"Then join us," the sisters reply as one. "Join us and die, as you have wished for these last weeks and months."

The Lady's sweet voice mingles with Jadis's commanding tone, and for a moment, Susan considers it. She remembers things differently; the train wreck, the mangled bodies, the hurried funerals--they are strangely distant and blurred. And if she wishes, they can evaporate like so much smoke.

"Then what?" she says curiously, and both witches laugh, filling the air with sweetness.

"Death is gentle, young one," says the Lady. "Death is kind. Kinder by far than the life you have lived."

Jadis's voice is still quiet, but there is a strange edge to it, and her eyes glitter with savage triumph as she speaks.

"Least loved of the four children who stumbled upon Narnia. Least appreciated, never heeded, always in the wrong. And nothing changed when you were Queen. Vulnerable, fragile, a prize to be captured or jealously horded. That was your life here, was it not?

"And then you were cast back to a place where magic is dead and the winds do not sing. Reduced once more to the body of a child, you who had known wealth and power--and lovers."

Susan's jaw drops, and a cold smile begins to twist around Jadis's thin mouth.

"Poor fool, this is _your _dream. I know you. I _am_ you."

And for a heartbeat, Susan Pevensie sees herself and Jadis of Charn as though they stand on opposite sides of a mirror. Two former Queens of Narnia, tall and lovely with sweeping black hair, dark and glittering eyes, and skin as pale as the snow. The vision disappears, and she is back to herself, shivering in the snow before the great and terrible beauty of the sisters--no longer alive, but unable to truly die.

"You didn't answer my question," says Susan slowly, and though her voice shakes, her words wipe the smile from Jadis's face.

"Oh, we're not going to tell you everything," says the Lady, holding out her reptile-encrusted hand to Susan. "Let's say it takes...a leap of faith. You did it once; you will find it easier the second time."

Susan Pevensie, who has stalled and waited and urged caution so often in her life, does not hesitate giving her answer.

"No."

In an instant, Jadis's facade of calm cracks, and her eyes blaze with fury while her sister's serpents swarm toward the impertinent girl and curl around her body. They writhe and lash in vain, unable to touch her while she dreams.

"You would go back to _him?_" Jadis shrieks over the snakes' cacophanous hisses. "You, once a Queen, you would crawl and beg and snivel for forgiveness?"

The light is dim at first, a feeble and artificial glow. But it grows stronger and stronger until it shines from every inch of Susan's skin--not the lion's golden radiance or the coldness of the dying sun, but a pure white that sends the snakes fleeing back to their mistress, spitting in agony. A white that begins to dissolve the very fabric of the snow.

"I thought about it," says Susan quietly as the light grows even stronger. She can feel herself slipping away and knows this is her last chance. "But I'm not going to do that either."

The Lady's eyes widen briefly before she laughs, a harsh and shrill giggle completely unlike her earlier tone. "You do not understand. You must choose."

"Says who? You? Him? What will you do, come to my world and make me choose?"

The light is now blinding, and even Jadis has to squint to see the outline of what used to be the girl as her voice echoes back to them.

"I think you're the one who doesn't understand. And I won't be seeing any of you again."

* * *

By the time her alarm clock rings, Susan Pevensie is already wide awake. The curtains in her apartment were open, just a gap, letting in a brilliant white sliver of late morning. She glances over at the calendar on her wall and swallows hard.

Six months. Six months to the day, and she still has not changed the calendar. She slowly gets out of bed, her thin white nightgown billowing around her. She reaches up to the calendar pages and tears once, twice, six times.

The large sheets of paper fall near her bare feet, and just as she's about to pick them up and toss them in the wastebasket her door buzzer sounds.

"Who is it?" she calls, hurriedly wrapping a dressing gown around her shoulders.

"Mrs. Dealey from downstairs, dearie," answers an old woman's voice.

A ghost of her old smile, but a smile nonetheless, spreads across Susan's face and she hurries to the door.

"Oh, I'm so sorry, my dear. Were you still asleep?" says the old woman when she sees Susan's dressing gown, slippers, and tousled hair.

"Not at all," replies Susan hurriedly, gesturing for Mrs. Dealey to come in, but the old woman shakes her head. She points at a basket by her feet, covered with a thin blue sheet.

"I'm sorry to bother you, dear. I've been asking around all morning, you see, and there's none who will take them."

"None who will take wh--"

The question dies in her throat as Mrs. Dealey lifts the cloth to reveal four tiny puppies, curled up for warmth, fast asleep in the basket. They are so small Susan could hold them in the palm of her hand.

"My husband was all for drowning the lot when Mabel had them, but I didn't have the heart to do it. There's none I've asked who will take them," she repeats, looking up at Susan. There is no hope in her bleary grey eyes, just a calm and mechanical plea.

Susan kneels next to the basket and runs a gentle finger over the tummy of one of the puppies. It blinks and nuzzles her hand instinctively, its nose pressing against her skin, and a confused wave of tenderness washes over her. She forgets she has a lawyer appointment that afternoon, that the second installment of funeral bills are due, that she's a single English girl with no means save her rapidly vanishing inheritance.

"Tell you what, Mrs. Dealey," she says gently, picking up the basket. "I'll take the lot."


End file.
